27 years since Chernobyl and what have we learned?

April 26th marks the 27th anniversary of the devastating accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

The radiation released into the atmosphere by the exploding nuclear reactor found its way across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and large parts of Europe.

The contamination still lingers in many places - the disaster has a legacy that continues even now.

So today, we remember those who died in the Chernobyl accident and those who must still live with the terrible after effects of the radioactive contamination that still blights their lives.

Chernobyl should have been the world’s last nuclear accident. Enough of us shouted “NO MORE CHERNOBYLS!” But those with the money and the power and that strange ability to put profits before the protection of people carried on regardless.

The comparisons between Chernobyl and Fukushima are stark. Thousands upon thousands of people displaced from their homes to face uncertain futures. Melted reactors too dangerous for humans to approach for decades. Homes, schools, soil, food and water contaminated. Uncertainty about the long-term effects of the radiation that has spewed into the environment. Fear and anxiety that will creep across generations.

So today we remember both Chernobyl and Fukushima. There should never have been another Chernobyl. There should never be another Fukushima. Let us shout “NO MORE CHERNOBYLS AND FUKUSHIMAS” until we are heard.

It’s time we all stopped paying the price for nuclear power’s mistakes.

You can help by signing our petition to make the big, rich companies that supply nuclear reactors part of the responsibly for nuclear disasters that now rests with nuclear operators.

Companies like GE, Hitachi and Toshiba that supplied the flawed reactors at Fukushima should pay some of the costs. Right now they don’t have to. Making them more responsible for the costs of a nuclear disaster would at least help reduce some of the mistakes that lead to accidents.

It’s time to make the entire nuclear industry face its moral and financial responsibilities. It’s time to think of people not profits.

Luckily, a scientific paper just came out about the "terrible damage" ...

Oh no! GP is playing naughty boy in science class again!

Luckily, a scientific paper just came out about the "terrible damage" wrought on people by the "big evil" nuclear industry:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3051197
"Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power", Kharecha & Hansen, EST 2013.
In short: ca. 70'000-80'000 lives saved each year (of which ca. 20k each in EU and USA), >1.8 million historically.
So yes, NPPs, as other pretty safe things like hydro dams and trains, do sometimes fail, even quite badly. But overall, they save quite many lives!

Now what price do we pay by stopping NPPs? From GP's own results:
http://www.greenpeace.de/fileadmin/gpd/user_upload/themen/klima/Kohle-Gesundheitsreport.pdf
http://www.greenpeace.de/fileadmin/gpd/user_upload/themen/energie/130401_Deliverable_IER_to_GREENPEACE_DE.pdf
Or another study, from HEAL, with similar results:
http://www.env-health.org/IMG/pdf/zusammenfassung_heal_coal_report.pdf

From those reports, the coal causes ca. 10 early deaths /TWh on average in Germany, so shutting down 42 TWh/year of nuclear in 2011 now is causing >400 more deaths/year. People who are paying the price for the hysterical campaigning of GP and other ideologues - who of course will never do what they ask of others, i.e. pay for the horrendous consequences. Hypocrisy, someone?
Of course, GP will yell "we don't want coal!". The real truth: so GP could boast "see, we didn't need those NPPs" (and to partially offset the billions spent on PV and wind), they had to muster those cheap killers.

Let's now look at the methodologies used in the original study: NEEDS and ExternE. Note that the GP piece, even if it essentially bases on the Uni Stuttgart study, fails to mention its use of ExternE… because the results are too well known (Table 2 / Figure 3):
http://www.bigthunderwindpower.ca/files/resources/Electricity_generation_and_health_(The_Lancet_2007).pdf
Apparently, GP is counting on the newer NEEDS being not so familiar. But the results aren't so different (Table 2 / Figure 5):
http://www.psi.ch/info/MediaBoard/Energiespiegel_20e.pdf
So GP is using the very studies it is complaining about - not very honest, is it?

One may now easily guess what grade GP got for behaving so badly in class with its anti-science antics:
F. Fail.

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

70% of Japan population wants to get out of nuclear energy; this is unrelated to any hysterical campaign as the anti-nuclear movement in Japan is extr...

70% of Japan population wants to get out of nuclear energy; this is unrelated to any hysterical campaign as the anti-nuclear movement in Japan is extremely well behaved.

I am not sure exactly why the Japanese people, who used to support nuclear generation, turned against it.

Maybe because the goverment official speaker at the time of the Fukushima disaster (a lawyer) repeatedly said on TV that "there will be no immediate effects on health".
Maybe because the utility that was, and is, responsible for Fukushima (Tepco) has been portrayed by some media as arrogant, insincere and at times even inept.
Maybe because the government, Tepco, the metereological agency and the local governments have been reported as unable to warn the population about the radioactive fallout from the collapsing Fukushima plant.
Maybe because the costs of the Fukushima failure are disproportionate to the supposed benefits of not burning fossil fuel.
Maybe because the Japanese media reported rather candidly the relationship between nuclear generation and nuclear deterrence.

Whatever the reason, the Japanese people appear to have had enough of nuclear generation.

Maybe in the aftermath of Fukushima chancellor Merkel felt that her voters could punish her for supporting nuclear generation and, at least for the moment, changed her policy.

Italy is a highly sismic country and its citizens have voted against nuclear power twice (in two referendums); as a result there are no npps operating in Italy.

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(Unregistered) Zamm_
says:

@Beppe: In case you didn't notice, you are so "well-behaved" that you granted an overwhelming majority to the main pro-nuclear party in ...

@Beppe: In case you didn't notice, you are so "well-behaved" that you granted an overwhelming majority to the main pro-nuclear party in last year's elections…

Also, your (increasing) fossil fuel bill is more each year than twice the estimated cleanup costs (ca $550 vs. $250 billion). Even counting the extra electrical generation alone, it will maybe take 10-20 years - just do the math:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/24/energy-japan-mof-idUSL4N0AT00Y20130124
Using the previous links, you can also calculate the extra mortality to replace >200 TWh/y - or just stick your head in the sand ("no immediate effects on health").

As D. MacKay says in his excellent book, "Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to be pro-nuclear. I’m just pro-arithmetic."
http://withouthotair.com

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@Zamm_ Welcome back :-) And still not able to critically assess scientific papers, as I see. Nor grey papers, for that matter. Greenpeace used the NEE...

@Zamm_ Welcome back :-) And still not able to critically assess scientific papers, as I see. Nor grey papers, for that matter. Greenpeace used the NEEDS study to illustrate the killing power of coal - not to confirm the biased calculations for nuclear.

A colleague of mine, Jan Beranek, reacted thus on the Kharecha paper:

----

Some obvious things:

- He assumes that if we did not have nuclear, its energy would be substituted by 95 % with coal and 5 % by gas. There is absolutely no justification for this.

- He assumes nuclear killed less than 5,000 people since 1971, and comments that even that is probably exaggeration of 2 orders of magnitude (i.e. implying that nuclear has only about 50 victims in past 40 years). This is in contrast with 16,000 (WHO) or 60,000 (EU) or 90,000 (Greenpeace) or even more deaths that can be attributed to Chernobyl, not talking about other accidents as well as routine radioactive emissions (e.g. increased leukemias in vicinity of normally operating nuclear reactors which has been observed in
Germany, UK, US and elsewhere).

It's just a data selective, biased, activist like approach
twisting things to make your point. I sincerely hope he handles climate science in very different and more rigorous way.

So if asked, i simply say that the paper is obviously based on wrong assumptions of a false dilemma coal vs nuclear and ignores EE and RE potential; and ignores peer reviewed reports that suggest nuclear power has tens of thousands of victims. Greenpeace does not see the dilemma to be between fatal nuclear and fatal coal, but between dirty and risky technologies of coal and nuclear, and efficiency and renewables solutions that are affordable and can be upscaled to replace all dirty energy in few decades.

-----

I couldn't have said it better :-)

By the way - about the myth you are trying to spread that Germany is using more coal because of its nuclear phase-out we discussed earlier already. Maybe you should address RWE, Vattenfall, E.On and EnBW on the point of them trying to press as much out of their old coal stock and selling that off abroad before they need to close them down in 2016. This is not replacement of nuclear, this is big coal using the market to squeeze out some more profit and not caring a damn about the climate. The lost nuclear capacity has - in TWh - already been replaced by EE and RE in Germany.

Concerning Japan... I think it is fair to blame the nuclear industry for the extra fossil use there. When running nuclear, you need to take into account how you are going to replace shut-down capacity in case of a large accident somewhere on this planet. If the Japanese electricity giants had not relied so much on nuclear and failed to take EE and RE seriously, Japan would not have had to revert to short-term increases of fossil use after a major incident. Implicitly blaming Greenpeace for not having phased out nuclear in Japan before Fukushima is a bit bland.
I do support your point that it is justified to add the extra bill, including external costs, for the increased fossil fuel use in Japan to the liabilities of the Fukushima accident. Again a bill paid by the people and not the responsible corporate entities like TEPCO, GE, Hitachi and Toshiba...

Paraphrasing MacKay: "I am not trying to be anti-nuclear. I'm just pro-arithmetic and evidence."

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(Unregistered) Zamm_
says:

@JH: Kharecha & Hansen, being scientists and not ideologues, frankly discuss their assumptions in the paper, including the (evidently large) uncer...

@JH: Kharecha & Hansen, being scientists and not ideologues, frankly discuss their assumptions in the paper, including the (evidently large) uncertainties and limitations.

Their nuclear:fossil replacement criterion is transparent: baseload is attributed to coal and peaking to gas, with a 65% capacity factor as a threshold. While it's reasonable based on historical data, the main possible future limitation I see is shale gas (see USA), which may yield a lower value than 95%. However, even this has many caveats:
- The medium- & long-term potential is unknown.
- Fracking is heavily resisted in many places.
- The US coal is still being mined - just burned elsewhere.
- The medium-term CO2-eq. is high (methane emissions).
- The results with 70-80% instead of 95% are still bad…

Concerning Tchernobyl, some variation of estimates is normal, because the majority of the effects are attributed to low exposures using the LNT model (one should also distinguish between occurred and future projected consequences). An up-to-date epidemiological review may be found here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3107017
The absolute numbers for diseases other than thyroid cancer are rather small: a recent study on 100'000 liquidators yields ca. 22 accident-related leukemia cases (16% of 137), far from the horrors one can read in Green media:
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1204996

Since GP desperately clings to its NPP - leukemia FUD tactics, a bit of science never hurts:
http://www.comare.org.uk/press_releases/documents/COMARE14report.pdf
"In Germany, the Commission on Radiological Protection concluded that radiation exposures to residents in the vicinity of German NPPs are lower, ‘by a factor of considerably more than 1000’, than the level that could cause the raised risk of childhood leukaemia reported from the KiKK study."
"… there is no evidence to support the view that there is an increased risk of childhood leukaemia and other cancers in the vicinity of NPPs in Great Britain."
http://www.canupis.ch
"…found little evidence for an association between the risk of childhood cancer and living near NPPs."

Of course, Green scientific ethics are a bit 'different':
http://iopscience.iop.org/0952-4746/28/1/001
"…leukaemia incidence for Wales was counted twice."
"…the dataset has been systematically trawled."
"…The construction of the post hoc areas also suggests data-dredging."

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@Zamm_ Always happy with a good bit of dialogue :-)

Conc. the Kharecha paper. The historical data are a "what if" game with ind...

@Zamm_ Always happy with a good bit of dialogue :-)

Conc. the Kharecha paper. The historical data are a "what if" game with indicated rough brush data. Without nuclear power in the game, the energy development would have been different than what we see today. I don't think it makes much sense to come with statements like in that paper, though I am happy to see sensible estimates of the harm done by coal. Pity he was not as rigorous for nuclear. I continue to be disgusted by the harm that the Paul Scherrer Institute is doing with the ExternE and NEEDS assessments and the blind following those still have, including you. Above all because I cannot close my eyes for results in the field, especially concerning Chernobyl.

I continue to find it strange you wobble over the findings of studies and play down the results - especially when the conclusion in the second article you mentioned is "Exposure to low doses and to low dose-rates of radiation from post-Chornobyl cleanup work was associated with a significant increase in risk of leukemia".
The authors of the first article make clear they were members of the Chernobyl Forum - the Forum we criticised strongly with our Chernobyl health effect report. This newer study of them is - again according to them - based on the information in international peer reviewed literature, i.e. still excluding a lot of peer reviewed material from the Russian language area that we included in our study - one of the fundamental critiques we had in 2005. This also becomes clear from their literature list, which, by the way, refers to a large amount of studies from other people from the Chernobyl Forum. Seven years later, these two authors have not drawn a central lesson from the fundamental international critique on the work of the Forum.

Concerning the KiKK study - this study has never claimed to give a causal relationship, but did find a statistical significant relation between distance to NPPs and childhood leukemia cases. There are proposal hypotheses around for an explanation, but not yet the data-sets to have them tested, as far as I have understood. A conclusion that therefore "nothing is the matter" is wrong. COMAREs conclusion is at least unscientific. If you find a relationship and your hypothesis does not cover that, it does not mean that the measured facts are wrong... You basically say "it could not have happened and therefore it didn't happen". Reality is that it did happen, but we do not have a causal explanation for it yet.

What you are basically doing is trying to wind down the available material to "radiation has no effect", which even the (not always uncontroversial) studies you mention strongly deny. Does that mean you want to imply that people should not bother about their radiation exposure after a nuclear accident? That they should not be evacuated?

I do not really care what Green politicians say. I am not linked to the Greens, nor is Greenpeace. Greenpeace is independent from any political party or other political interest. If you want to fight with Green - or any other - politicians because they exaggerate, please do so. They may start also listening to us better.

But I do not accept your attempts - nor those of Kharecha - to deny the health effects of radiation and of nuclear power. Especially not if those attempts are based on debatable or even simply bad science. Especially not because those that did suffer under the effects of Chernobyl and Fukushima - as well as those that suffered from dozens of other radiation incidents (and larger accidents like Mayak and Windscale, not to forget) deserve attention. As do the victims of the use of coal power.

The final question remains: should we continue to take these risks of nuclear and coal if alternatives exist? The alternatives do exist, and the answer is "no".

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(Unregistered) Beppe
says:

Zamm,

in case you did not notice the last elections were not a referendum on nuclear power, they were general elections.

In ...

Zamm,

in case you did not notice the last elections were not a referendum on nuclear power, they were general elections.

In case you did not notice only about one fourth of the Japanese population voted for the LDP and, according to most analysis, the vote was largely unrelated to nuclear policy. In fact recent polls show that much of the Japanese are still against nuclear power.

By the way, Japanese politicians have in several occasions (Tokyo, Osaka and Shizuoka, as far as I recall) denied the Japanese people a chance of a direct vote on nuclear. This is not democracy, is a subsidy to nuclear industry (free insurance on regulatory risk).

In case you did not notice, Japan electricity price for households is among the highest in the world: for this price Japanese consumers should be able to afford whatever fossil fuel.
Investment into nuclear is a mistake; why is it externalized to ratepayers and taxpayers (and victims of nuclear accidents)?

Finally, in case you did not notice, the price Japan pays for LNG is about twice the price paid in Europe (one reason being that utilities are incentivated at procuring fuel at a higher price because that translates directly into guaranteed higher profits, another is the utilities do not import directly but use go-betweens). If Japanese utilities managed to pay the same price as Europe the money saved could cover a large fraction of the extra imports required to cover for missed nuclear generation.

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(Unregistered) Zamm_
says:

@JH. We can test the "Without nuclear power in the game" hypothesis simply by looking at electricity generation in comparable countries: ava...

@JH. We can test the "Without nuclear power in the game" hypothesis simply by looking at electricity generation in comparable countries: available hydro first developed, followed by fossil and/or nuclear. Countries with little hydro/nuclear use lots of coal, and incur huge CO2 and health costs (e.g. Poland, Greece, Estonia):
http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/co2-electricity-g-per-kwh
CO2-wise, the best is all-hydro Norway, closely followed by hydro+nuclear Sweden & Switzerland and nuclear France. Kharecha's hypothesis is (up to now) mainly correct: less nuclear means more coal, oil and gas - for now.

ExternE & NEEDS: you're mixing things up (ExternE NPP analysis not by PSI, and a 'European LWR' assessment not applicable to RBMK types). If one is curious and applies plain common sense (not 'blindly following' ideology), there's ample info to be found to base one's opinion, for instance:
http://www.oecd-nea.org/nsd/docs/1988/csni88-156.pdf
http://www.oecd-nea.org/nsd/docs/1992/cnra-r1992-1.pdf
Many countermeasures to Fukushima-style incidents were initiated in Europe even before Chernobyl, based on experience from TMI. Even better: a rationale for passive mitigation was severe accidents involving 'station blackout and decay heat', does that sound familiar? in contrast, this was refused by the US (still dithering over filtered venting, an utter disgrace) and Japan (Japanese fashion, "under study").

A similar critical look shows your "Chernobyl health report" doesn't shy away from people with very questionable reputations in its reference section, e.g. Scherb, Körblein, Schmitz-Feuerhake: using any quackery as ammo doesn't help your credibilty, see e.g.:
http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/media/krebskranke2.html
http://www.fme.ch/cms2/fileadmin/Webmaster/Dateien/AGKIS_LetterSexOdds_Lausanne_V1__21_Juni_12_.pdf
In this line, your accusations against COMARE are groundless: they were very scientific, considering many other studies, the state of current knowledge on dose-response… and the fact (see 1st link above) that no measurable radiation dose could be linked with the (real) leukemia clusters. This was BTW also the conclusion of the KiKK study.

Although available data is partially conflicting, I consider prudent to treat low-dose radiation as a 'weak carcinogen'. Both words are important, hence the prudent "ALAR" (as low as reasonable) principle: avoid, but not at the cost of much higher risk, e.g. coal / biomass burning, reckless evacuation of old people, avoiding needed radiological examination/treatments. BTW, one very large dose contribution to the general population is energy-efficient (i.e. "radon-efficient") housing, ca. 1'000x the dose from a nearby NPP. What is your position on this?

Concerning "alternatives" to the current German "Kohlewende", you mentioned coal plants needed to "close in 2016". Why should we believe this?

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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
says:

@Zamm_ Thank you again for some interesting points.

You point out indeed the biggest weakness of Kharecha's paper: current energy mix...

@Zamm_ Thank you again for some interesting points.

You point out indeed the biggest weakness of Kharecha's paper: current energy mixes were developed after WWII on the 20st century paradigm of the centralised state-owned utility model and base-load / peak-load planning in a time when most RE sources were not technically developed as far as they are now and when climate change did not play any role in policies. Especially because we are seeing a fundamental shift in paradigm - away from centrally planned base-load / peak-load to liberalised markets with variable load planning. And countries like Denmark, Germany and Portugal show that it can be done.

The use of the acronym PSI gives you away as someone from the nuclear village or the EC. I am still curious who is hiding behind the Zamm_ pseudonym.
I stand corrected on the team behind ExternE - though that does not take away my conclusion that the team is heavily nuclear village influenced.
Excluding Chernobyl on the basis that the technology is different than LWRs is like excluding the Banqiao dam from hydro because its technique was different than in other dams (type of concrete and steel used, magnitude, water management, etc.). The problem with Chernobyl was not the other technique alone - it was a complex of human and technical failure from which we have seen many aspects repeated in Fukushima - and unfortunately I see them repeated in many NPPs in Europe day in day out. CANDUs can continue to run with positive void factors, testing and inspection runs are cut short to meet political deadlines like with Temelin 1, etc.. By the way, also many European NPPs still have no vented filtering (see the EU stress tests). The step to exclude Chernobyl cannot be statistically argued and proper analysis would have shown figures at least with and without it.

Interesting that you mention two studies as "questionable" that in my eyes are not at all. I have been following the Krümmel / Geesthacht leukemia cluster quite closely and can only conclude that the statistics are right. To dismiss the search for answers on the basis of a TV documentary in what is a very complex case, including not only the Krümmel NPP, but also the GKSS research center, is weak. The letter to the editor on the work of Scherb and Voigt shows you what good scientific debate looks like - it does, by the way, not criticise the statistics, it debates how to deal with statistics. I think that is a healthy debate, but want to stress that statistics are part of the discussion. Certainly in complex issues as potential health effects of low radiation exposure.
Happy you at least do not deny the existence of the leukemia clusters.

Although I am extremely unhappy with the term ALARA and especially the constant abuse of the term "reasonable" in that as a means to cut costs on the ground, or cut discussions that might lead to necessary cost increases, I agree that discussions about enery policy should be based on comparative evidence. That is exactly what we do with the Energy [R]evolution scenario, and what was done in Germany in the late 1990s on the basis of scenario studies for the German Bundestag. It is what is not happening in most of the EU and the world, however, where industry / political party wish lists tend to set the options put forward in energy strategies without any proper comparison. I am struggling with that on a daily basis currently in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary.

Concerning radon - come on! This is an issue that is known for such a long time that it is solid part of building prescriptions. And to be taken seriously. But the answer on that is simple: proper and sufficient ventilation. And that is something that does not interfere with insulation or the implementation of energy-neutral or energy-plus houses and buildings. The large dose contribution is not because of energy efficient housing, it is because of insufficient ventilation - and that happens both in old stock, like in the former GDR where I was involved in discussion on the effects of the Wismut uranium mining activities, and in new. To use that as an argument to obfuscate the discussion on potential health risks of nuclear power is bland.

The need to close coal power plants in 2016? Yes - why would you believe me. You rather seem to believe those who want to defend the nuclear industry cost what may. Well, maybe DIRECTIVE 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control) is sufficient.

Hope this helps in understanding.
Maybe it is time to start doubting the backgrounds of those who feed you with the information you are passing. I certainly do that.

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(Unregistered) Zamm_
says:

Thanks for the response - a skeptical look is always good!

Denmark and Germany are mainly efficient in fleecing consumers with high prices - though the pain is endurable for some:
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute/luxus-immobilie-am-rhein-solarworld-chef-kauft-gottschalks-schloss-a-879828.html

Germany is building & commissioning quite a lot of new - better but still significantly deadly - plants. The government (BNetzA) says they're necessary. With your "energy revolution" calling for >2/3 generation from "random" sources, they might have a point… (Also look up "Irsching5" - very interesting)

Krümmel. Measurements revealed nothing special, with Schmitz-Feuerhake labelled a fraud even by anti-nuclear circles (quote from Gerald Kirchner: "Especially as an opponent of nuclear power, one should argument very, very rigorously"):
http://www.kernchemie.uni-mainz.de/strahlenschutz/stuttgzeit_081298.html
(If you still doubt, just have samples measured!)

Radon. Compared to what is allowed in the building code, you'd have to lower levels by >100x to reach doses as low as that from a nearby NPP. Even with a low infiltration rate and a good heat exchanger (so not for >95% of old stock), the required ventilation power and heat losses would become quite large… So it seems your point ("large" NPP emissions and "low" radon risk) doesn't quite make sense…

2010/75/EU. Please read the directive carefully - it's riddled with loopholes (no / larger limits on small plants, "temporary" operation of dirty old plants allowed at small capacity factors, no CO2 limits), and the targets you criticize as lax for coal are similar for biomass. Taking a closer look at the smoke, the results are not pretty at all (very small, deadly particles):
http://www.dustconf.com/CLIENT/DUSTCONF/UPLOAD/S4/EHRLICH_.PDF

I agree with you no trade should be allowed to build a "village" sheltered from scrutiny, because risk (pollution / accidents) is indeed very implementation-dependent. Public info on pollutants and stress tests is very helpful in putting pressure on negligent operators and regulators. BTW, here is where you can meet "villagers":
http://www.dna.fr/edition-de-guebwiller/2013/05/04/des-elus-unis
Apparently, you'll have a lot of convincing to do…